True story: for three years my wife and I looked for a small town to call home. People thought we were crazy to leave Portland, Oregon where we had met, married, and gave birth to our precious son. The ever-growing popularity, the crowds, the traffic, the ever-escalating prices, the pace in Portland all motivated us…. Read More

I’ve been a group process consultant for 28 years. For the first 26 years most of my work was focused on weathering storms, or training groups in foul weather drills, so that they could better handle heavy seas themselves. In the last 18 months, however, there’s been something of a sea change. In addition to… Read More

Greetings from Cohousing Research Network (CRN)! We are excited to share with you our National Conference presentation of the results from the 2012 National Survey of Cohousing Residents. https://www.cohousing.org/2015/docs/research This was a high leverage research project that used a single survey to answer a myriad of research questions devised by a highly interdisciplinary team of… Read More

I didn’t expect to hear so much birdsong in the morning. I didn’t expect to be able to see so much sky, sometimes the sunrise and sunset on the same day. I didn’t expect to love my apartment so much, or to feel the disappointments I feel. I didn’t expect that my marriage would break… Read More

When the Cohousing Association of the United States held their annual conference in Durham, North Carolina, last month, most folks in my neighborhood—just four blocks away—weren’t entirely clear what cohousing was. But after a few insiders visited our Durham neighborhood, we not only learned what it was but also that we’ve been doing it for… Read More

One of the future needs for all cohousing communities is to continue generating support for CoHoUS for developing and training the next generation of cohousing leaders. Just moving in to your new home is not the completion of the community, it is merely the beginning. We are all mere mortals. Every conference I attend gives… Read More

At the national cohousing conference, many of you may remember Aaron Darland, who seemed everywhere at once, helping presenters with A/V set up. Aaron was at the conference with his wife Jas and two (adorable) children. As Aaron and Jas consider the next step in their intentional community explorations, they have started a podcast –… Read More

WOW. I’d wager it’s not just me feeling giddy after this weekend’s Conference. It’s even hard to choose a standout moment. As a pre-Conference volunteer, I had a chance to see some of those gears cranking in the months leading up to May, and really, just got a small taste of the enormous amount of… Read More

This is part of a “Go Ask Alice” blog posted by Rosemary Wyman with Jubilee Cohousing http://jubileecoho.com/go-ask-alice/ Jubilee Cohousing was a National Cohousing Conference Community Sponsor I can promise you I wasn’t smoking or doing anything trippy, but the three days that I spent at the national cohousing conference in Durham, NC were powerful, and… Read More

Thank you for allowing Organic Transit to show the CoHousing Conference attendees our ELF. If you didn’t get a chance to see the ELF, it is the solar/pedal powered, battery assist recumbent bike. The ELF has a top electric speed of 20 mph, 500 pound payload carrying capacity, weather protection through its encapsulated shell, and… Read More

Here’s my take on what went “wrong” at the conference: 1. Overall length of conference — waaay too short. 2. Length of individual presentation times — too short. Sessions went over as attendees continued asking questions I wanted answers to. 3. Food — Gained 1 lb. 4. Too many competing GREAT sessions. Very very frustrating…. Read More

A great video from the conference, courtesy of Ava Lazar (11) and Mia Lazar (13) who are kids living in cohousing Click here to view

Most values statements are so vague that pretty much anyone would be willing to endorse them. Values statements mean nothing unless they are connected to a vision, mission, and aims. The same organization can say we value environmentally friendly products and processes and mean entirely different things. I’m sure there is an executive at BP… Read More

April marks my one year serving as Executive Director of Coho/US. So how is the association doing? In a phrase, just fine, and getting better! Here’s a profile of Strategic Plan progress. Stabilizing Revenue Stream – As we refine a business model for long term sustainability, we now enjoy a much stronger financial position than… Read More

If you’ve signed up for the Cohousing Conference, you may have chosen your intensives or mapped out your top picks for sessions. Well, if I could direct your eyes to the Networking Tab on the Conference webpage, there’s another way to connect with specific groups during your downtime. There are many free gatherings offered, ranging… Read More

Durham Central Park Cohousing is looking forward to hosting National Conference participants at a reception in our new home on Saturday, May 30th, 5:00-7:00 pm. As an added delight, we’ll be offering spins in a Durham-grown product, the ELF. Organic Transit’s ELF is a trike with solar-powered battery back-up, all in a colorful shell that… Read More

I attended the Cohousing Conference in Seattle, WA in 2009 and had an amazing time. I’d been living in Cohousing for 6 years and thought I had a pretty good handle on the challenges and solutions for all the typical issues that come up in community. I was curious to see what other communities were… Read More

Grace Kim has written a great article that profiles how cohousing offers a good alternative to assisted living, or to continuing care facilities. This was published in Blueprints for Senior Living – an online journal for the Design For Aging committee of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) http://www.aia.org/akr/Resources/Documents/AIAB105853 Grace will be presenting “Cohousing: A… Read More

You’re probably tired of hearing about smaller units, standardization, simple unit plans, modest finishes, all with the goal of achieving more affordability. Well it’s true, these all help, but there are other affordability strategies that are based on interpersonal relationships, community, and trust, that can be just as effective, if not more so. The strategies… Read More

I am new to cohousing, or at least to the use of the term applied to a concept that has made a lot of sense to me ever since I first encountered it. That was many years ago when I read in an architecture magazine about some innovative and exceedingly sensible residential projects being built… Read More